not expand themselves as the rural habitations, which were often on a large scale. The builder knew how to choose his site, and his favourite one was the sunny side of a gently sloping hill with a pleasant open prospect and near a spring of water or a running brook. The buildings were ranged around an open court, sometimes on three sides, or occasionally on four, forming a quadrangle like an Oxford College. Round the square ran a covered colonnaded walk or corridor which gave access to the numerous rooms. The roof of the corridor was supported by pillars. The foundations of the house were laid with stone or brick, and the walls were made by timber-framing, the interstices being filled with "wattle and daub," similar to the construction of many old cottages, farmhouses, and the Magpies" " of Cheshire. It is thought that most of these houses were only of one story, but at Silchester some traces of stairs were discovered. The rooms were numerous, but small, ranging from about twenty feet to as many as eighty. There were winter and summer quarters, the former being heated by hypocausts. Perhaps it is hardly necessary in these enlightened days to describe a hypocaust, but for the benefit of the uninitiated I may say that it consisted of a heated chamber beneath the floor of the room, which was supported by little pillars of brick or masonry and consisted of cement. A furnace projected outside into a yard or shed, and generated hot air which penetrated into the hypocaust and was carried into the rooms by vertical flue-tiles. In this way the Roman made

himself warm and comfortable in the depth of our northern winter. The same method was adopted for heating the baths, which were usually a feature of every country house. These were similar to our Turkish baths, and included a cooling room, the tepidarium, caldarium, and sometimes a specially hot room called the sudatorium.

The windows of the house were glazed, and within it there were bright colours on the walls with delicate marbles and stuccoes of brilliant hues. The artist who decorated the walls copied nature as he saw it around him. Instead of the vine with clusters of grapes which adorn the walls of Italian villas, he used to copy the ears of corn growing in our British fields. Shrines and frescoes and statues decorated the interior; a fountain splashed water in the courtyard wherein bright flowers grew, and all the floors of the house had tessellated pavements, dearly loved by every Roman. Some floors were composed of simple red tessellæ, but in the principal rooms, frequented by the master and his family, there were produced by these variously coloured little cubes the old legends of the gods, Bacchus with his wild rout, Orpheus charming the animals with his lute, Apollo singing to his lyre, Venus loved by Mars, Neptune with a host of seamen, scollops and trumpets, Narcissus by the fountain, Jove and Ganymede, Leda and the Swan, wood-nymphs and naiads, satyrs and fauns, masks, haut boys, cornucopiæ, flowers, and baskets of golden fruit.

A fine Roman house was discovered some years ago near Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, at Spoon